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ABSTRACTS

Language-Related Symptoms in Persons with Schizophrenia and How Deaf Persons May Manifest These Symptoms

Disturbances in language have long been viewed as a principal identifying characteristic of schizophrenia. The language-processing deficits of persons with schizophrenia are manifested in a variety of ways. Historically, analyses of schizophrenic patients’ language disorders have focused almost entirely on speech. Deaf persons, however, constitute a portion of the population that is diagnosed as schizophrenic, and sign languages are often their principal means of communication. In recent years, preliminary observations have been reported that indicate that there are a number of similarities between the linguistic deficits of signing Deaf persons with schizophrenia and those evident in the speech of hearing schizophrenic patients. Systematic investigations of schizophrenic Deaf persons’ signing need to be conducted both to improve treatment programs for Deaf patients and to increase our understanding of the language aspects of schizophrenia.

In all but deaf cultural groups, the appearance of a deaf child is an extraordinary event that must be accounted for. Many “causes” of deafness emerge from cultural accounts that have at best shaky bases in science; even unknown causes wield cultural power, illuminating the mysteriousness of this condition to hearing people. In addition, the deaf child must be dealt with (treated or rehabilitated). This article describes a set of popular “cures” used with deaf children in Mexico.

The possibility of a passive construction existing in ASL has been alluded to from time to time in the literature on ASL grammar, but discussion is infrequent, and the usual conclusion is that a passive does not, in fact, exist. We contend, however, that a particular configuration of ASL grammatical features surrounding an otherwise transitive verb qualifies as a fully passive construction, and that these passives are more frequent in ASL discourse than may have been realized. This discussion continues and expands upon an earlier proposal in which we identify grammatical and functional characteristics of passive constructions in ASL discourse (Janzen, O’Dea, and Shaffer 2000).